Inspired by Lin and Huang’s (2009) rhythmic study of Chinese dialects, this study examines speech rhythm of 21 Chinese dialects from three perspectives, timing, melody, and phonological structure. The 21 dialects belong to four major groups of Chinese and their respective sub-groups. The four major groups are Mandarin, Wu, Min, and Cantonese. Nine duration-based and four pitch-based metrics are used to quantify timing and melody, respectively. Four phonological structure-based metrics are used to explore the relationships between syllable structure and timing and between tone structure and melody. All the metrics are paired up according to five categories, duration-only, pitch-only, duration-pitch, duration-syllable, pitch-tone, and each pair is subject to a correlation analysis. Then timing and melody patterns of the Chinese dialects are determined by correlation patterns of relevant metric pairs. The main findings of this study are as follows: 1) Timing and melody patterns of the Chinese dialects are far from homogenous across major groups and melody patterns are more distinct than timing patterns; 2) No single metric pair is able to quantify speech rhythm consistently for all the Chinese dialects; nonetheless, pitch-based metric pairs fare better than duration-based ones; 3) Syllable-timedness and melodiousness are correlated positively for all the major groups except for Wu; 4) Phonological structure plays little role in shaping timing and melody patterns of most Chinese dialects. The above findings are both expected and unexpected. They are expected in the sense that rhythmic perception invovles multiple acoustic cues, so it comes as no surprise that not all rhythmic metrics are successful in quantifying Chinese rhythm. They are unexpected for the reason that all the metrics are developed based more or less on phonological structure, yet the rhythmic patterns they reveal do not correspond to the structure affinity or group membership of the Chinese dialects. Overall, the findings suggest that pitch is a more import cue than duration to Chinese rhythm. As the first study of Chinese rhythm across multiple dialects and from different perspectives, this study not only lays a methodological foundation for future research but also contributes to our in-depth understanding of Chinese dialects. / Graduate / 0290 / yali@uvic.ca

Tato práce hledá souvislost mezi intonačním rozpětím a přívětivostí, která je podle Pětifaktorového modelu považována za jednu ze složek osobnosti. Jelikož zkoumání projevů osobnostních rysů v hlase není ve fonetickém výzkumu příliš běžné, je v teoretické části popsán sou- časný stav poznání v oblasti postojů, popisu osobnosti a prvních do- jmů v hodnocení osobnosti. Představeny jsou především studie, které se týkají působení řeči. Jádrem práce je experiment, v němž je porov- náván vliv tří úrovní intonačního rozpětí (komprimovaná, normální a expandovaná) na hodnocení přívětivosti u 15 českých mluvčí. Per- cepčního testu se účastnilo 41 respondentů Intonačnímu rozpětí je věnována samostatná kapitola, která se zaměřuje především na pro- blematická místa popisu. Statistická analýza neprokázala významné rozdíly mezi úrovněmi rozpětí, podrobnější rozbor se tak zaměřil na odhalení rušivých proměnných a popis slabších trendů. Klíčová slova: intonační rozpětí, melodie řeči, vnímání mluvčího, stereo- typní hodnocení Abstract The purpose of the current study is to establish the relationship be- tween pitch range and agreeableness which is viewed as one of the personality traits according to the Big Five model. As the focus on the manifestation of personality traits in speech is not very common in phonetic...

Neuere Forschungsergebnisse aus dem Bereich der Musikpsychologie zeigen, dass die subjektive Beurteilung, ob jemand spricht oder singt, nicht nur von Eigenschaften des empfangenen akustischen Signals abhängt. Obwohl die Tonhöhe beim Sprechen anders moduliert wird als beim Singen, kann der Tonhöhenverlauf einer gesprochenen Äußerung vom Rezipienten als eine musikalische Tonfolge wahrgenommen werden. Dieser Eindruck brachte Musikschaffende und Sprachwissenschaftler bereits seit Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts dazu, Sprechmelodien in Form musikalischer Notenschrift aufzuzeichnen. Im aktuellen Diskurs der Linguistik setzte sich diese Art von Notation nicht durch. Für die Beschreibung der grammatikalisch relevanten Eigenschaften der Sprechmelodie in Intonationssprachen wie Deutsch und Englisch werden schematische Darstellungen eingesetzt, in denen es im Wesentlichen auf die binäre Unterscheidung zwischen Hoch- und Tieftönen ankommt. Um die Sprechmelodie aus musiktheoretischer Sicht zu betrachten, kann sich jedoch die Transkription in musikalische Notenschrift als ein wertvolles Werkzeug erweisen. Durch die Notation wird die Vielfalt der intervallischen Strukturen von Sprechmelodien erfassbar und eine Grundlage für deren musikalische Analyse geschaffen. In diesem Artikel wird zunächst ein methodischer Ansatz zur gehörmäßigen Erfassung von Sprechmelodien erprobt. Der Vergleich zwischen der exemplarisch transkribierten Sprechmelodie und den Messwerten der Grundfrequenz des Sprachsignals deutet darauf hin, dass das Gehör die verfügbare Tonhöheninformation selektiert, um daraus die Vorstellung einer musikalischen Tonfolge zu konstruieren. Im Bereich von Tonhöhenakzenten orientiert sich die Wahrnehmung scheinbar nach dem lokalen Maximum der Grundfrequenzfunktion, während sich in den übrigen Silben deren Mittelwert als auschlaggebend herausstellt. Anhand der Transkription werden mögliche analytische Ansätze dargelegt, die strukturelle Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen sprachlichen und musikalischen Melodien veranschaulichen. / Recent research results from the field of music psychology show that the subjective assessment of whether someone speaks or sings does not only depend on the characteristics of the received acoustic signal. Although the pitch is modulated differently when speaking than when singing, the recipient can perceive the pitch of a spoken utterance as a musical tone sequence. This impression has since the end of the 18th century led musicians and linguists to record speech melodies in the form of musical notation. In the current discourse of linguistics, this kind of notation has not prevailed. For the description of the grammatically relevant characteristics of the speech melody in intonation languages such as German and English, schematic representations are used in which the main focus lies on the binary distinction between high and low tones. However, to approach speech melody from the perspective of music theory, the transcription in musical notation can be a useful tool. Notation allows to capture the variety of intervallic structures of speech melodies and provides a basis for their musical analysis. This paper introduces a methodical approach to the aural recording of speech melodies. The comparison between the transcribed speech melody and the measured values of the fundamental frequency of the speech signal suggests that the auditory system selects the available pitch information in order to construct the representation of a musical tone sequence. In the area of pitch accents, the perception seems to be driven by the local maximum of the fundamental frequency function, while in the remaining syllables, its mean value appears to be determinant. Based on the transcription, possible analytical approaches are presented, illustrating structural similarities between linguistic and musical melodies.

DIPLOMA THESIS Leoš Janáček's Lachian Dances and their use in music education at primary school Eliška Mervartová ABSTRACT The diploma thesis deals with Leoš Janáček's Lachian Dances and their didactic application in music education. The theoretical part examines the Lachian Dances through the didactic analysis and describes the speech of composer and its connection with folk art. The practical part of the diploma thesis is focused on the didactic interpretation of the Lachian Dances. The pupils in the age of middle childhood, specifically 3rd and 4th graders at the Vrchlického primary school in Liberec, were selected as a sample. The results of the thesis are teaching materials that serves as a source of inspiration for students of primary education and current teachers of music education. KEYWORDS Leos Janacek, The Lachian Dances, speech melody theory, the didactic interpretation, the age of middle childhood, teaching materials, music education